Today on The Number Thirteen Line: The future of rail transportation in New York. The Number Thirteen Line is a monthly blog about transportation in New York and around the world by "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz and Annie Weinstock.

Driverless cars, intelligent traffic signals, road signs that speak to cars and cars that speak to drivers... These are not the dreams of mad scientists working in a remote region of the country. These are not part of an upcoming episode of a new series on the Sci-Fi channel either. But, these technologies might help save 21,000 of the 43,000 deaths annually recorded on America’s highways.

Gas exploration has been happening in Pennsylvania since the 1800s. However, a new technology and new price incentives have made possible the exploration of the Marcellus shale. It is a geological formation – the size of Greece – stretching from New York to West Virginia and holding what could become the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir.

About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York City and its suburbs. And the cost to maintain one of the world’s most extensive mass transit systems is expensive. Each new subway car, for example, costs $1.4 million. Replacing and maintaining tracks runs the state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) about $303 million a year.In order to pay for subway maintenance and projects over the years, the MTA has had to borrow a lot of money for funding. So much so that the MTA is now the fifth biggest debtor in the United States – after the state of California, the state of Massachusetts, New York State, and New York City.Blueprint America looks at the costs of maintaining New York City's transportation system and the difficulties involved when making improvements.

Since the 1920s in New York City, the Second Avenue Subway line has been in the works. Follow the delays, cost overruns, political ineffectiveness, and several ground breakings over the years as the line has still yet to be completed.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr speaks with Joe Trainer, Chief Engineer of MTA Capital Construction in New York City, about the day to day process of building the Second Avenue line from above ground in Manhattan.